The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-05-21
THE STORY OF A GREAT DELUSION

On the 26th OF May, 1873, there appear
ed in Nuremberg, Germany, a short,
stout, homely boy of rustic appearance,
wearing dark gray suit, blue stockings
and hobnailed half boots. He had with
him an unsigned letter, addressed to
major in the cavalry, which read: 81 send
you youth who wishes to serve like his
father, in the light horse. He was put in
my charge by his mother in 1912. am
poor days worker with family to take
care of. have never let the boy
go away from my house, so that not
soul in the world knows where he has
lived until now. II you don't keep him,
kill him, or hang BIN up by the chimney"
Enclosed in this letter was another pur-
porting to have been written sixteen
years earlier, but written on the same
kind of paper and in the same handwrit-
ing. Its substance was as follows: "The
child has been baptised and his name is
Caspar Hyuser. When he is seventeen
years old send him to Nuremberg to the
light cavalry regiment. He was born on
the Both of April, 1912. 1 am a poor girl
and cannot support him and his father is
dead" Both of these letters are charac-
terized by the same badness OF grammar
and spelling and by the same peculiar
tiles of dialect that Caspar afterward ex-
hibited.
The cavalry major to whom these letters
were given questioned the boy as TO who
he was and where he was from. But the
boy could not tell anything. He simply
stared at his questioner with look OF
simple minded, injured innocence, and
answered, 81 don't know don't know"
This absolute agnosticism naturally
aroused the majors suspicious, and the
boy was handed over to the police, and
locked up as vagabond. This aroused
the attention and pity of all Nuremberg
The rumor spread that ''a wild child of
nature" was confined in the tower. Every
body came to see him. The boy accept.
ed the role expected of him, and for
few days remained the embodiment of
baby-like ignorance. The lovers of the
mysterious, the lovers of the curious,
found in him an almost miraculous phe-
nomenon. Five days after his appear
ance, DIR. Preu, prominent homeopathic
physician of Nuremburg, announced that
sthe lad is neither crazy nor idiotic, but
has evidently been violently estranged in
the most shameful manner from all hu-
man and social culture. He is like
LA oh tho rxy,n1c -
The boy was taken out of the jail and
placed in a private family. The kind
hearted burgomaster of Nuremberg in
terested himself in him, and gradually
obtained his story, which, as the boy said
he had been absolutely forbidden to re-
veal. He said that from early childhood he
had been shut up in a close cellar dimly
lighted by two little windows. Here he
had lived for years, dragging himself on
the hard ground without ever getting
sight of sky or sun or moon, or hearing
song of bird or cry of beast or sound of
footstep or human voice. His food had
been brought to him when he was asleep.
For companions he had nothing but two
wooden playthings. One day, not long
before his appearance in Nuremberg,
dark man had appeared to him, and told
him that he should know his father some
day, and that he was destined to be
cavalrymap, and that he must learn to
walk and read and write. These
things the man taught him, and then
gave him the letters which he had pres
ented to the cavalry major.
All this the burgomaster published to
the world in a proclamation containing
thirty-three thousand words. He ex-
pounded as gospel truth every statement
the boy had made, and narrated as of the
highest scientific interest, everything the
boy had done. The proclamation was
filled with marvels. The boy had given
signs of inspiration. In three days he
had learned to play on the piano, and
shortly afterward he had knitted stock
ing No sooner was he placed upon the
horse than he began to exhibit remarka-
BILE equestrian accomplishments. Never
the less all Germany was moved by the
burgomaster's proclamation. Thousands
Travelled to see the "child of Nuremberg"
Noblemen paid him homage, and women
of fashion dotted upon him and loaded him
with favors. Scientists studied him as
the representative of the natural man.
His story was translated into all Ian
guages, and it was proposed to adopt
him as ''the child of Europe" Mean
while the boy, thus introduced to the
world, spared no pains to sustain him
self in the part assigned him. He spoke
of himself in the third person, and talked
to the bread while he was eating. He
pretended to believe that the flowers and
trees we're made by the hands OF men,
and would exclaim: "How much time
they must have takenP All of these
actions were carefully recorded by scien-
ti6c observers. The boy was discovered
to be sensitive" He recognized geo
pie by their walk at incredible distances.
He would be overpowered by certain
odors that others could not perceive.
A hardware shop would cause him to